Moore's Law: No more

Speaking to BBC News, Dr Gordon Moore said that he expected the proposition that bears his name should continue "for at least another decade. Eventually, however, we're down approaching the dimensions of individual atoms and that's clearly as far as we can go down the path of shrinking dimensions."

Tiny technology

The "law", first articulated in 1965 and then revised in 1975 now states that the number of transistors on a chip should double every 24 months.

"It has become a driving force for the industry because competitors realises that if they didn't move at at least that rate they would fall behind technologically," said Dr Moore, co-founder of Intel.

For the last 40 years this has primarily been achieved by reducing the size of transistors and packing more of them onto a chip.